The morning of the 4th Day of our trip brought a very rainy day. I'm not talking sprinkles here...I mean RAIN....buckets of RAIN. Cold, hard, RAIN. We had missed the Sled Dog Demonstration at Denali on our first evening there and had missed it the second day because we were on the Tundra Wilderness tour so we were bound and determined that we were going to get there on this day before we headed back to Anchorage.
Sled Dog Demonstration at Denali National Park
We found that finding out information about the Sled Dog Demonstration was a bit difficult. Now having said that we certainly found out about it and made our way there as did lots of other visitors but it just wasn't that "user friendly". We started with the official website:
http://www.nps.gov/dena/planyourvisit/sled-dog-demonstrations.htm which is buried in the Denali National Park Website. If you haven't been to Denali before and don't happen to run across a review or information, you may not know to look for the demonstration page. Once you get to the page, they tell you that there is a demonstration, that the buses leave the visitor's center 40 minutes before the show and what time the shows are for the date that you are going. This is all very good information, but had we had just a little bit more information, we would have planned this stop very differently. Here is what we found:
1. Check the website for the times that the show is offered. At the beginning and end of the tourist season, there are fewer shows. During the peak of the season they offer 3 shows, 10 AM, 2 PM and 4 PM.
2. Make your way to the Visitor's Center. You can drive into the park far enough to get to the Visitor's Center. There is parking at the Visitor's Center where you can leave your car. You CANNOT drive to the kennel area. You must take a bus or hike the 1.5 miles from the Visitor's Center to the Kennels. There is a gift shop, cafe and restrooms in addition to the Visitor's Center in this area so there are things to do if you happen to arrive early.
3. The shows run rain or shine. It was raining pretty hard and we checked at the Visitor's Center before waiting for the bus. They looked at us like we were nuts....of course they have the shows. These dogs work in horrible weather conditions, a little bit of rain isn't going to deter them!
4. Once you are ready to board the bus, make your way down to the bus boarding area. You follow the doggy footprints painted on the roadway and it will take you directly to the bus area.
5. Yes...it is probably a really good idea to arrive at the bus loading area 40 minutes ahead of the scheduled show time. However....they run buses at least up until the time that the show starts. As long as there are people standing there waiting to board, they send buses to pick them up and deliver them to the kennel area. If you do arrive ahead of time, you will be on oe of the first buses and have more time to interact with the dogs before the show begins. The buses drop off their passengers and then park and wait until the show is over so there is no waiting to return to the Visitor's Center other than the time it takes to walk to and load the buses. Had we known that there were multiple buses or that arriving later than the 40 minutes ahead of the show didn't disqualify you from going to that show, we most likely would have done this activity on one of the other days.
Arriving at the Kennels
After parking and checking out the gift shop, we made our way to the bus loading area. The buses are the green school bus type buses of the park service. We loaded up and headed to the kennels. We were on the first bus, so we had plenty of time to see and interact with the dogs before the show began. The bus ride was maybe 5 minutes and there was a bit of a walk to the actual show area from bus parking lot. The new litter was only about 8 weeks old at the time and we were able to check them out. The bad thing about it being such a rainy day was that the puppies stayed in their house! Most of the other dogs didn't seem to mind the rain but it did put a bit of a damper on viewing. You were allowed to pet the dogs and take photos of them.
 |
| The puppies cuddling with their mom during the rain. |
 |
| My son loved interacting with the dogs! |
 |
| The dogs are beautiful and fun to see. |
 |
| The Denali Sled dogs are bred to be larger dogs than the Iditarod Dogs |
There is a building which has a small educational display inside. It is in a small space and fills up quickly. When it is time for the show to begin, the rangers will announce that it's time to go to the viewing area. There are several benches for visitor's to sit on and watch the show, however they fill up very quickly. There were about 6 bus loads of people who attended our show and the majority of those ended up in the standing room only areas. Actually, we all ended up standing because the seats were all wet but had it been dry, we would have had a seat!
The show runs about 45 minutes long. The majority of the show is an informative talk that is given by one of the rangers. They talk about the work that the dogs do and how life is at Denali. Some reviews I had read before going indicated that this part is a bit too long. Maybe it is, but it's interesting and gives you a feel for what the dogs do. About midway through the talk, the rangers hook the dogs up to the demo sled. I have never seen dogs so excited about what they do!!! Every dog in the place wanted to be picked to do the demo. They were jumping all over the place and didn't quiet down until the dogs that were picked were hooked up to the sled! The ones who weren't picked actually looked a bit depressed if that's possible!
The ranger then brings the sled around a path and stops in front of the viewing area. The whole demo only lasts about a minute. Once they are parked, the dogs are given treats and the ranger continues the talk, explaining what each dog's position is, what that position is responsible for and the traits they look for in the dogs to fill those positions.
 |
| The sled dog demo at lightening speed and through the raindrops! |
 |
| The sled dog demo |
Once the demo is over, they give you the opportunity to look around and see the dogs again and head back on the buses when you are ready. Given the rain situation when we were there, everyone pretty much headed right back to the buses! The buses then take you back to the Visitor's Center where you can look around, have a meal or snack and collect your vehicle. The whole process lasts about 2 hours and is really a whole lot of fun and really interesting. I wish the weather had cooperated a little bit more because I think it would have been even a better visit but even through the raindrops we were all glad we had gone.
Heading back to Anchorage
There is only one road to Denali from Anchorage and only one way back! So back we headed on the same roadway. We did not make as many stops on the way back as we did on the way there. The rainy weather guaranteed that there would be no Denali sightings that day and quite honestly there really isn't a whole lot to see on the roadway when it's raining. Once we got closer to Anchorage, the rain lightened up a bit and we did get to see some very pretty scenery.
 |
| Views on the way back to Anchorage |
 |
| The mountains are beautiful! |
Embassy Suites Anchorage
Our hotel of choice for the evening was the Embassy Suites Anchorage. Since we had stayed at the Homewood Suites on our first night, we decided to try a different hotel for our second stay in Anchorage. They were both rated very highly by travelers so we wanted to check them both out. I will say that the Embassy Suites was a much nicer hotel by our standards. The Homewood Suites was nice and clean but with very small rooms. The Embassy Suites was larger and had a wonderful Manager's Reception and Breakfast. The rooms were much more spacious than the Homewood Suites rooms. My husband always requests a room on an upper level and far away from the elevator so we were not shocked by the very long walk to our room. However, if you have mobility issues you may want to request a room closer to the elevator as some rooms are really quite far away in this hotel. This particular Embassy Suites was laid out differently than most. Most have the center lobby area with rooms going in a square around the center. This hotel had regular corridors and the rooms were not off the lobby area. It was much quieter than most Embassy Suites because of this.
 |
| King Bedroom |
 |
| TV in the Bedroom |
 |
| Wet Bar with Refrigerator |
 |
| Desk and Living Area |
 |
| Living Area with Pullout Sofa |
 |
| Bathroom |
 |
| Bathroom |
This was a great place to stay and we enjoyed a great night's sleep. The one recurring theme the entire time we were in Alaska was how light it was no matter what the time. You hear about the endless daylight hours but until you experience it, it just doesn't make sense! Here was the view from our hotel room at about 10:00 PM:
 |
View from our room at 10:00 PM...still light out!
|
I would highly recommend this Embassy Suites if you are staying in the Anchorage area. It was time to rest up for the next leg of our trip....a ride down the scenic Seward Highway and then back to Seattle.
Next up: The Scenic Seward Highway, Portage Glacier and back to Seattle
Follow me on Twitter @travelswithmelb
No comments:
Post a Comment